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“Oh no!” The girl’s face became
the pallor that frightens, and on either side of her
a hand was dug in the couch on which she was sitting.
“I’m all right now. I don’t
want a cab. I just want to go, and by myself.
Please let me go!”

The last words were lost in a sob, and coming close
to her I sat beside her, and, putting my hand on her
face, turned it slightly that I might better see the
big, black bruise on her forehead, partly hidden by
the loose, dark curls which fell across it. Her
hair was short and thick and parted on the side, giving
her a youthful, boyish look that was in odd contrast
to the sudden terror in her eyes, and for the first
time I saw how slight and frail she was, saw that about
her which baffled and puzzled me, and which I could
not analyze. She wore no hat, and the red scarf
around her neck was the only touch of color in her
otherwise dark dress. The lips of her large,
sweet, sensuous mouth were as colorless as her face.

“You have been hurt.” I put my hand
on her trembling ones. “Did some one strike
you or did you fall?”

She shook her head and drew her hands away.
“I wasn’t hurt. I—­I slipped
and fell and struck my head on the pavement.
Don’t let anybody telephone. I can go
alone. Please—­please let me go!
I must go! I can’t stay here.”

“But you mustn’t go alone.”
I turned to Selwyn. “Mr. Thorne will go
with you. Do you live far from here?”

“Not very. It’s close enough for
me to go by myself. He mustn’t go with
me.” The words came stumblingly, and again
I saw the quick, frightened look she gave Selwyn,
a look in which was indecision and appeal, as well
as fear, and I saw, too, that his face flushed as he
turned away.

With quick movement the girl got up. From her
throat came a sound hysterical and choking, and, putting
her hand to it, she looked first at me and then at
Mrs. Mundy, but at Selwyn she did not look again.
“I’m going. Thank you for letting
me come in.” Blindly she staggered to
the door, her hands outstretched as if to feel what
she could not see. At it she turned and in her
face was that which keeps me awake at night, which
haunts and hurts and seems to be crying to me to do
something which I know not how to do.

“You poor child!” I started toward her.
“You must not go alone.” But before
I could reach her she fell in a heap at the door, and
as one dead she lay limp and white and piteously pretty
on the floor.

CHAPTER VI

I don’t understand Mrs. Mundy. She acts
so queerly about the girl we found on the street last
night. She put her to bed, after she had recovered
from her fainting spell, on a cot in the room next
to her own, but this morning she told me the girl
had gone, and would tell me nothing else.

When Selwyn, who had picked her up and laid her on
the couch, asked if he should not get a doctor, Mrs.
Mundy had said no, and said it so positively that
he offered to do nothing else. And then she thanked
him and told him good night in such a way he understood
it was best he Should go.